


The Long Answer Is No

by skarletfyre



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Aromantic Medic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-11
Updated: 2015-01-11
Packaged: 2018-03-07 04:22:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3161042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skarletfyre/pseuds/skarletfyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heavy doesn't understand Medic's behavior and doesn't know where they stand. So he decides that the best way to learn is to ask questions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Long Answer Is No

**Author's Note:**

> i actually wrote this ages ago but never got around to publishing it for whatever reason.
> 
> this is kind of important to me because i am aromantic, and Medic is one of the first characters i ever headcanoned as aro. i wrote this during a really difficult time for myself, trying to understand what was going and why i felt the way i did, so a lot of this is straight up personal experience.
> 
> i really wasn't going to publish this at first, because i know it's not exactly a popular headcanon or anything, but it feels important to put it out there. just for the other people out there who were like me and just needed to see themselves reflected in something.
> 
> so, yeah. here ya go.

Medic was a good man.

He was smart and funny, and kind when it counted. He was always polite, always considerate. He provided guidance when it was asked for, and offered support to his teammates in times of trouble. He worked for the betterment of the team. For the betterment of the human race. Perhaps he could get carried away – violently so – but it was generally agreed that his heart was in the right place.

He was well read and freely shared his knowledge with those who asked. He tended to his birds, his lovely flock of white doves, with almost fatherly affection. On the battlefield, he dispatched of his foes with quick and surgical precision. He tended to the wounds of those in need and helped everyone he could, but also exhibited an excellent grasp of strategy and focused his attention where it was needed most. Off the field, he joined the others for drinks around the fireplace, games of chess and cards, swapped stories with the Engineer and the Demoman, laughed along with Scout and Soldier. And in the dark of night, in the quietest hours between dusk and dawn, he was a skilled and generous lover.

But Heavy felt that there was something wrong.

He hadn't thought anything of it at first, the way the doctor drew away from him when he tried to pull him close. Their relationship was new and tentative. Boundaries had yet to be set. But it didn't take him long to realise Medic did not like being touched. Not outside of the bedroom, not where their teammates might see, not even when they were all alone. Heavy accepted this. He understood that some people were just this way, that touch made them uncomfortable. He didn't press the issue, and learned to only offer his affection when he thought it would be welcome. Sometimes it was. More often, it wasn't.

When it came to making love, however, touch was not an issue. It was not only accepted, but apparently craved.

Medic would fairly beg for Heavy to put his hands on him, to hold him and grip him while he did the same. The change in attitude was drastic. And, to Heavy, confusing. This was a man who didn't like being patted on the back after a day of hard work, and yet he would guide Heavy's hand to his waist, or his thigh, or his back as soon as the doors were closed and the clothes were off.

But he didn't question it. In the dark, he was permitted to hold his Doktor. And that was enough.

That was months ago, though.

As time had passed, and Heavy discovered more and more things that Medic did not seem to enjoy, he began to notice a pattern.

Medic didn't approve of gifts. When presented with a book that Heavy had bought for him on his birthday, he was delighted. He appreciated the effort, and Heavy had found him reading the book many times over. Gifts themselves were not the problem in and of themselves, if there was a good reason for them. Once, after much debating with himself, he had presented Medic with a box of chocolate after Spy had explained to him the romantic significance of such a gesture. He knew that Medic enjoyed chocolate, and didn't understand why the doctor became so flustered when he found the box on his desk, along with the handwritten note Heavy had included, after seeking assistance from Spy with some of the English phrasing.

The doctor had thanked him, but his smile was too tight. He was not nearly as pleased or excited as Heavy expected. But he ate the chocolates, and kept the note – tucked deep within a locked drawer in his desk. Hardly the place to keep what should have been a treasured romantic gesture. Heavy satisfied himself with the excuse that Medic was a very private man, and didn't want any of their teammates accidentally stumbling upon it.

Medic didn't like to be kissed, either. This, in truth, was all the more upsetting to Heavy.

The first time he kissed Medic, it had taken the man by surprise. He had returned the kiss after a moment, with notably less enthusiasm, and again there was that tightness to his smile. That little bit of warmth that didn't quite meet his eyes. Heavy didn't understand.

His second attempt to kiss Medic was aborted by the doctor turning his head and raising his hand, so that Heavy's lips collided awkwardly with the heel of his palm.

“Not tonight, _liebe_ ,” Medic had said, patting him fondly on the chest. “I have work to do.”

Heavy had pulled away, blinking and confused. He hadn't meant to instigate anything sexual. He just wanted a kiss.

Something as simple and relatively innocent as a kiss shouldn't be so hard to obtain. But as time wore on, it became very apparent that Medic was intent on denying it to him. Even in bed, in the throws of passion, the man would always find a way to turn his head, or move his face, or open his mouth to speak. Once, fed up, Heavy had threaded his fingers through Medic's hair and made the doctor face him, made him hold still while he pressed their mouths together.

And Medic bit him.

While it by no means spoiled the mood, Heavy was startled enough to let go. He didn't try it again.

The most distressing issue by far was the way that Medic would distance himself after they made love.

Every time, without fail, he would roll away and leave a good amount of space between Heavy and himself. Sometimes he would leave the bed entirely, to shower or simply to get dressed. He wouldn't stay the night in Heavy's room. Sometimes, he wouldn't even let Heavy stay with him down in his private room built off of the infirmary.

His excuses all made sense on a superficial level. It would be awkward for both of them to step out of a single dorm if Soldier decided to do a morning wake up call. Medic liked to be clean, and preferred not to fall asleep covered in sweat and fluids. It was too hot to be held, and Heavy did tend to run a little warmer than others due to his size.

Heavy accepted these at first, nodding understandingly to disguise his disappointment at being kicked out yet again. But the excuses were wearing thin. When Medic rolled unceremoniously away from him, over and over, it hurt a little more every time.

But Medic's behavior in and out of the bedroom was as different as night and day.

He was not unkind or standoffish toward Heavy. He seemed more than happy to sit next to him at meals, or to indulge in a game of chess or checkers. He showed nothing but enthusiasm when it came to following Heavy into battle, tending his wounds, sharing in his successes and supporting him in his failures.

Heavy noted, with growing unease, that Medic was also this friendly with everyone else.

Perhaps he was being naïve. Perhaps it was foolish of him to think that his intimate relationship with the doctor meant anything out here in the Gravel Pits. He cursed himself for the ache he felt in his chest when Medic turned away from him, or postponed their engagements to stay up all night hunched over his desk, filling out forms in his small, spiky handwriting. It hurt, these little pseudo-rejections. They hurt him more than he liked to admit to himself. Heavy had become very fond of the German doctor. Perhaps more fond than he should have.

This constant back and forth, the rapid switches between talkative and engaging, to passionate, to cold and distant, it was all too much. Heavy didn't know what to make of it. He didn't know what to make of his Medic – if he even was _his_ – and it was both confusing and frustrating. He grappled with the depth of his own feelings for the doctor, made all the more difficult by the fact that he didn't know how Medic felt about him. Was there something there? Did Medic feel _anything_ for him, or was Heavy too thick to see that the only thing the man wanted from him was his body, and his might in battle?

Heavy was a man who liked to know where he stood with people. And in his life, he had found that the most direct route to knowledge and understanding was to ask questions.

So he went looking for Medic.

The doctor was not in his room, or his lab. Heavy ducked his head into the showers when he heard water running, but it was only the Engineer. That ruled out another place for Heavy to check. The doctor and the small Texan could sometimes be found collaborating on technological advances, either in regard to the Medigun or the Respawn system, in Engineer's “lab.” In truth, the lab was a shed. But it was large enough to accommodate them and their “science crap,” as Scout called it.

Heavy checked the common room, and was directed by a drowsy Sniper to check out in the yard.

In the fortified training yard at the back of the base, Heavy found what he was looking for.

Medic and Demo were sitting in the dirt, hunched over a crate and tinkering with something sitting on top of it. As Heavy drew closer, he could see that they were mixing chemicals together. Explosives. Out in the open, and without any blast protection. The fools.

“-don't make any bloody sense,” Demo was saying, scowling at the device in from of him. “It ought t'ave blown. Yer sure ye set the blasting cap like I showed ye?”

“ _Ja,_ I'm sure,” Medic sighed, a sullen expression on his thin face. “I did as you said. Perhaps I am simply no good in this line of work.”

“If you were no good, ye would've killed us all,” the Demoman murmured, looking up as Heavy approached. His greeting smile faltered when he saw the look on Heavy's face. Medic remained focused on the work in front of him.

“Doktor,” Heavy said loudly. “I want to talk to you. In private.”

Medic frowned, but didn't take his eyes off of what Heavy now recognised to be a half built pipe bomb.

“Later,” the doctor said, reaching out to reposition the wiring. “I will be finished with this soon, just as soon as I figure out how to –”

Heavy nudged the crate gently with his foot. Demo scrambled to grab the explosives before they fell over while Medic fell backwards into the dirt in his haste to retreat. He looked up at Heavy with wide eyes.

“Now, Doktor,” he said, ever louder than before. “We are going to talk _now_.”

There was a moment of tense silence. Demo's eye flicked nervously between the two of them. Heavy saw Medic's throat bob as he swallowed, and narrowed his eyes.

“Very well,” the doctor said calmly, slowly rising to his feet. “Herr Demo, if you will excuse me. Perhaps we can continue this lesson later.”

Heavy didn't even check that Medic was following him as he strode away, heading away from the yard and back inside. He didn't stop when they passed the common room, or the mess hall. What he had to say, and what he wanted to know, were no one's business but his own.

He didn't slow or stop until he reached the infirmary, pushing the doors open roughly with one huge hand. Once inside, he swiveled, coming face to face with Medic just as the smaller man came to a halt behind him. The anger that had been building inside him during the walk, fueled by months of pent of hurt and confusion, made it very hard for him to think. English was not a language he had mastery of at the best of times, nor was it capable of expressing the scope of his feelings. But it was their only shared tongue. It would have to do.

“What are we?” he asked crudely, and more loudly than he meant to. Medic took a step back.

“ _Was?_ We – we are mercenaries, we are men, we are _homo sapiens_ , I don't –”

“No.” Heavy stepped forward, inwardly pleased when the doctor held his ground. “You and me. Together. What are we?”

Medic's brows knitted together in confusion.

“A team?” he asked warily. He didn't understand. Heavy snarled a curse in his mother tongue and turned away, walking deeper into the lab, trying to find the words to ask the questions he needed answers to. Medic followed him at a cautious distance.

“Heavy, what is going on?” he asked, then took several hasty steps backward as Heavy rounded on him.

“That is what I want to know!” he yelled. The doves sleeping in the rafters took to the air, beating a hasty retreat toward Medic's quarters. Medic opened his mouth, to chastise, but Heavy would not have it. “You and I, what is going on? To you, what am I?”

Medic blinked at him.

“You are my friend.”

Heavy wanted to hit him. He wanted to hit him twice as hard as the slap to the face that those words had been. He wanted to cry. But men who looked like him, big men, strong men with dangerous faces and blood on their hands, did not cry. And he would not. Not over this.

He settled for slamming his fist into the filing cabinet behind Medic, next to his head. The doctor yelped and shrank back, trapped between Heavy and cabinet, his eyes wide with fear and confusion.

“That is all?” Heavy demanded, and was ashamed of the weakness betrayed by his shaking voice. Medic's shook his head furiously, pushing his his shoulders back and straightening up.

“ _Nein,_ of course that is not all! You are _mein Freund_ , but you- you are also my partner in battle, my companion, you are a credit to the team. Heavy, please, I don't understand what you want me to-”

“We have shared bed!” Heavy roared, furious with Medic's stammering, with the words he was saying, with the point that he did not seem to be getting. “We are together, as more than men who are friends! Does this mean nothing?”

Medic's face went slack with comprehension.

“Of course it means something,” he said quietly, frowning slightly. “Why would you ask me that?”

“I ask you because I do not know. With you, I know nothing. I understand _nothing_. I don't know what you want from me, what we are doing. What is _us_.”

“Heavy –”

“Doktor, do you love me?”

Medic's mouth fell open.

Heavy had not meant to ask that out loud. Not yet, not with those words. But even with the sudden silence, and with the way Medic was looking at him now, he couldn't bring himself to regret asking. He had to know. He had to have the truth.

The expression on Medic's face, with stillness in his eyes and the way he slowly closed his mouth into a tight, thin line should have been answer enough. But Heavy needed to the hear the words. He waited.

“That... that is a very important question, _Liebe_ ,” Medic said softly. “The short answer to it is yes. And – and the longer answer is _no_.”

Heavy narrowed his eyes.

“Explain to me the long answer.”

Medic sighed and reached up to remove his glasses, rubbing wearily at the bridge of his nose.

“May we sit down, please?” he asked, then huffed when Heavy showed no signs of moving. “Stop being childish. You asked, and you have the right to an answer, and I have the right to not be backed into a corner and threatened. Move, _bitte_ , and I will- I will try to explain.”

Slowly, Heavy lowered his fist and stepped back. Medic took a moment to collect himself, make a show of straightening his tie and such, before striding briskly past him toward his quarters.

Medic's room was more spacious than the standard team dorms. It was built off of the infirmary, and Heavy had a strong suspicion that it was once been used for a more grisly purpose before Medic shoved a few decorations and pieces of furniture into it. There was a large bed, a wardrobe, a few collection of certificates and diplomas hanging on one wall. A small sitting area had been arranged, with a loveseat and an armchair set around a low table. Medic took the armchair, as he always did, and Heavy filled almost the entirely of the loveseat all by himself. He crossed his arms impatiently and stared at the doctor. Medic settled into his chair with a sigh.

“I didn't think I would have to explain this again,” he said after a moment. He wasn't looking at Heavy. “Not here. Not... not to you. I didn't realise that you-”

He pulled his glasses off again, more roughly this time, tapped them idly on the arm of his chair.

“I don't know where to begin.”

He looked at Heavy then, as though for guidance. Heavy's frown deepened.

“You say that you love me, but that you do not. Explain what that means.”

“That's not- Heavy, that is not a good starting point. I don't know _how_ to explain, how to start. It is confusing, there are words that I don't know how to use in English. I don't want you to misunderstand. I don't-” He paused, taking a deep breath. “I don't want you to be angry with me again.”

Heavy grunted.

“Am already angry. Explain. Use words you need to use, I don't care. I will listen.”

He could have sworn Medic's face softened slightly. The doctor was silent for a moment, thinking. When he spoke, Heavy didn't try to interrupt.

“I have a wife,” was Medic's opening line, and it cut Heavy to the core. “But that... that fact is largely irrelevant. We married when we were very young for – for political reasons. She loved me once, I know that much, but I am unsure if she still does. We have not spoken for quite some time, but I know that she has found someone else. Someone who can be better for her.”

He paused, an odd expression coming over his face. Heavy was watching him closely. Warily. He didn't understand where this was going, or why Medic had kept it from him. If this wife was not important, not the answer to all of this, then why had he brought her up?

Medic took a deep breath, and Heavy returned his focus to him.

“I do not love her,” Medic told him with a small, tired smile. “She is a fine woman. She is kind, and gentle, and intelligent, and has never been anything but patient with me. My feelings, or rather, my _lack_ of feelings toward her should not reflect poorly on her. I have no right not to love her. I _should_ love her... but I do not, and I never have. Not the way she needed me to. Just as I cannot love you the way that you want me to.”

His eyes met Heavy's, briefly, and there was weariness in them.

“I was not lying, when I said I love you. I wasn't lying when I said it meant something to me to share a bed with you, to spend our nights together. But it is... _Scheiße_ , it is difficult to find the words. I do not – I don't like to be touched, you know this. I take no pleasure or comfort from holding or being held by another. I don't feel any desire for that type of closeness. Kissing, hand-holding, to idly touch another person out of emotional need, I have never enjoyed it. I tried, in my youth, so as not to seem callous. I thought, for many, many years, that it was a failing of my character, that something in me was... flawed. It did not matter who my partners were, men or women, I felt nothing for them beyond desire and, in some cases, kinship. Sex has never been the issue. That particular type of contact is quite enjoyable. It is the intimacy that is expected to accompany it that I find difficult and, frankly, distasteful. But friendship... friendship is something that I understand. Friendship is something that I feel very deeply. I feel _friendship_ for you, Heavy, more strongly than I am capable of feeling anything else. I care for you. _Bitte_ , I need you to understand that. But whatever so-called “deeper” feeling there is, whatever this form of love you want from me is, I cannot give it. I have tried. All those years that I felt – that I thought I was _broken,_ I strove to understand the appeal of romance, to find the piece of me that I thought was missing. 

“It wasn't until later, not so many years ago now, that I shared my thoughts with a colleague, and she confessed to feeling the same way. And when we asked around, sought information from certain psychiatric circles, we found more people who felt as we did. Not all the same, of course. I met a man almost the opposite of myself, who became physically sickened at the very notion of sex but yearned deeply for a purely romantic love with a partner. It was... fascinating. And very enlightening. Suddenly, I was not broken. I _am_ not broken. I feel warmth and affection toward my friends, toward my wife, and toward _you_.”

Medic reached out and placed his hand on Heavy's own. Heavy stared at the place where their fingers met, feeling the warmth of the other man's palm against the back of his hand. It was the first time Medic had touched him in such an intimate, innocent way. He looked up and found Medic staring at him.

“I”m very sorry that I cannot give you what you want from me. I'm sorry if I have hurt you, Heavy, but _bitte – please_ understand that I do care for you. Please know that you _do_ mean very much to me,” the doctor said imploringly, squeezing his hand.

Gently, Heavy squeezed back.

“It is alright, Doktor,” he said quietly. “I understand.”

Medic made a noise like the wind had just been knocked out of him.

“You do?”

Heavy nodded.

“I think I do. Wish you would have told me, explained all of this before. But it is enough that you say it now. This answers many questions.”

“Oh? There was more bothering you?”

Heavy nodded again, and snorted lightly.

“There were many things that bothered me. The way you pulled away from me after we make love. The gifts I give you that you do not like. I did not understand why you would not let me kiss you. All this makes sense now. Perhaps I was foolish not to ask sooner.”

“Why didn't you?” Medic asked, and Heavy shrugged.

“Did not want to cause problem. I thought I would... embarrass myself, to ask things like why you would not hold my hand.”

He looked down at their joined hands, and Medic gave him another squeeze.

“I didn't realise it bothered you so much,” the doctor said, looking down. “And I will understand if you want to end this. If you need more, from someone else, you deserve that happiness.”

“You do not want this to stop?” Heavy asked, surprised. “Now that you know how I – what I feel, you are not uncomfortable?”

“Of course not. I'm quite happy with the way things are between us. I didn't even notice anything was the matter,” he frowned. “But if you want to continue this – well, I suppose it is a relationship, _ja? –_ I would be pleased to continue it with you.”

“I... I would like that. What is words Sniper uses, he says that he and Spy are “friends with benefits?” Maybe that is what we are?”

Medic laughed.

“I think that is a very adequate way to describe it, yes.”

Heavy smiled, and swiped his thumb across the back of Medic's hand.

“And maybe... maybe sometimes, if it is alright, we can sleep together?” he asked hopefully, then realised how it sounded. “Not- I mean, after we make love. We can just sleep?”

Medic smiled.

“I think I would be alright with that.”

 


End file.
